Ankita Sharma Presents "dhoka/Betrayal/" at JACK, Brooklyn
Company:
ankita sharma
Premiering at JACK
May 15 at 7:30pm with a talkback by IMGE Dance Founder, Ishita Mili
May 16 at 7:30pm
May 17 at 3:00 pm
May 17 at 7:30pm
With a smoky, erotic pulse, the sacred energy of fire bubbles over in dhoka/Betrayal/, an intimate dance-theater duet that entangles Hindu goddess Kali’s ultimate power with ethnonationalism. This fire is one that South-Asian artists and physical practitioners have harnessed since ancient times, acting as a reminder of one’s own power and as a tool of resistance. dhoka reclaims this heat to reimagine Kali’s mythology with the eroticism, androgyneity, gore, and epicness that often gets written out of post-colonial South-Asian art. With audiences peering into a fraught ritual between Kali and her follower, dhoka uses these aesthetics to trace the line between salvation and corruption, looking at how religion is used as a tool for propaganda in India. Letting the epic and human dance together, dhoka challenges a Hindu culture that is rapidly masculinizing itself to better fit a world of violence, invoking the feminine with one cathartic cry and a terrifying, bloodied tongue.
Created by ankita sharma
Performed by Eyner Roman and ankita sharma
Lighting & Sound Design by Max Sarkowsky
Vocals by Saluja Siwakoti
Set & Props by Soren Kodak
About ankita
Ankita Sharma is an experimental movement-based performance artist invested in storytelling where content dictates genre and betrays expectation. They create to think critically, unpacking systems and symptoms of power from a queer, punk solidarity-based lens that rehearses freedom in the body and mind. In aesthetic, their work is a grungy, confrontational, cheeky dance-horror with physical practices rooted in Contemporary dance, Dance-Theater, and forms from both the South Asian and the African diaspora. For Ankita, performance audiences are agentive, sitting with and challenging discomfort in environments where sophistication and blasphemy collide.
Ankita holds degrees in Dance and Anthropology and currently lives in New York. They have had live work performed throughout the US, including at: Denver Art Museum, Abrons Art Center, Dixon Place, The Tank, BASE, JACK, Ormao, Brockus Dance Project, and University Settlement. Their films have been presented internationally. They have received funding and support from Performance Project, GALLIM, NYSCA, Base Experimental Arts + Space, The Barn, ECS, LEIMAY, Crown-Goodman, and more. In their spare time, they have managed several award-winning dance-theater companies, including Punchdrunk's Sleep No More.
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